The Fukushima 50, the Japanese technicians who chose to stay behind in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to try to avert a meltdown after the deadly tsunami hit Japan last month, have reportedly resigned themselves to the fact that many or most of them will likely die in the upcoming weeks and months from radiation poisoning. “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation. He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term,” the mother of a 32-year-old worker told FoxNews. more ›

Now that the case against the competitive eating star Takeru Kobayashi has been settled, he wants to get something straight: it was all just a big misunderstanding! In a post on his website, Kobayashi claims his 4th of July arrest for jumping on stage after the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest was a crime of passion. more ›

After an 8.8 earthquake struck off Chile's coast yesterday, a tsunami warning was issued around the Pacific. Though there were fears that waves as high as 6 to 10 feet could hit the Hawaiian islands—prompting residents and tourists to flee to higher ground—there were only "erratic surges in the sea." more ›

A huge earthquake has hit the impoverished island-nation of Haiti, according to the Global Post. Casualties remain unknown, but a hospital collapsed and people were screaming for help, reported ABC. A US government official said some houses had tumbled into a ravine following the quake and Lauren Magloire, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera that panic had hit the streets of the capital. more ›

People around the world remembered the fifth anniversary of the devastatingIndian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed over 230,000 people in eleven countries. In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where 150,000 died, a woman whose children and nieces were killed, told CNN, "We are only human... We'll never really forget... We still feel the trauma. And when there is another earthquake, all we can do is run and pray." more ›

The One Club, who awarded DDB Brazil a merit award for their September-11th-tastic ad for the WWF, has revoked that award and declared no more fake ads will be tolerated! Take that evildoers. Meanwhile, Jenny 8. Lee has penned a breathless piece over at CityRoom regarding these so-called fake/phantom/scam ads. She points out that the ads are created solely to win awards (an ad world prestige)—in the words of DDB Brazil's president Sergio Valente, upon winning one such award, "you show everybody, ‘Look how good, how clever I am; how at the top of the trend I am,’ and, of course, everybody wants that." Will the Mad Men of the world soon be scared to push the limits? more ›

Looks like everyone's coming clean. Yesterday the WWF admitted that the controversial 9/11-themed ad was probably cleared by someone at the organization, and now AdAge is reporting that "after initially lying about it, DDB Brasil now admits it created a video version of the Brazilian print ad 'Tsunami,' and entered both ads in the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in June." more ›

Last night, Keith Olbermann jumped into the fake-WWF ad fray by declaring DDB Brazil, the ad agency that apparently pitched the 9/11-inspired concept (and never got the WWF's business) the "Worst Persons in the World" on Countdown. Olbermann also named all the creatives involved with making the ad and said of DDB Brazil CEO Sergio Valente, "Frankly, I hope he starves on the streets." more ›

Advertisers have been fixated on hurtling planes at the Twin Towers long before 9/11 happened, but it's safe to say they held off on it after that tragic day. Now, it turns out that a Brazilian ad agency—DDB Brasil—tried to win the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s business with this ad concept: An image of lower Manhattan showing many, many planes aiming at Manhattan—and they even include the Towers. (What is it with Brazilian ad agencies?). The text urges us to protect the planet; it also reads: "The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People Than 9/11." Okay, so who wants to make a mock-up of 1,000 Nazi soldiers being catapulted into Thailand? more ›

A group of scientists analyzing sedimentary deposits from more than 20 core samples taken around New York are increasingly confident that a rare Atlantic Ocean tsunami slammed the Northeast coastal region in 300 BC. The cause? An asteroid, theorizes one group led by geologist Dallas Abbot. Usually tsunamis are triggered by oceanic landslides, but her team discovered meteoritic material such as carbon spherules and nanodiamonds in the New Jersey and Hudson River cores dating to 2,300 ago. Scientists are planning to perform more radiocarbon tests on other samples, but that's just a formality: If it happened once, it will happen again, so check the sump pump in the basement—if you've got a basement! Researcher Steven Goodbred tells the BBC, "If we're wrong, it was one heck of a storm." Were it to hit New York today, scientists say a tsunami of this magnitude would leave Wall Street and the Long Island Expressway in ruins. The downside is that it would also snarl the morning commute. more ›

No time like New Year's Eve for some End of Days fun! The NY Times looks back at a tsunami that may have hit Fire Island in 300 B.C., saying it "washed over Fire Island and, to the west, waves perhaps as high as 20 feet spilled into Lower Manhattan. The furious onrush of water left sediment a foot and a half deep on the Jersey Shore, and debris cascaded far up the Hudson River." This is all based on reports from a Columbia scientist who, after finding carbon spheres in sediment, believes this was all set off by a meteorite (though until a crater is found in the ocean floor, many skeptics remain). So what should you expect if a meteorite-generated tsunami were to hit NYC today? "Someone at the tip of Lower Manhattan then would probably have seen something coming in. Then you would hear a big bang, maybe a series of bangs, something that sounded like gunfire or cannons. It would be a really, really loud noise. And then you would be knocked to the ground by the air blast. And then you would be inundated by the tsunami." Could it happen? Indeed it could...and has in craft form. more ›